F. Scott Fitzgerald once said there are no second acts in American lives. However, after having spent 20 years in the IT industry, serving in various roles from system administration to network engineer (10 of which have been in education), I’ve recently decided that my second act should be as a freelance writer covering the investor's view of the technology industry. My background in engineering gave me what I consider strong analytical skills. My 15 years of trading and investing gives me the experience to assess equities and appraise their value. I am a Warren Buffett disciple that bases investment decisions on the quality of a company's management, its growth prospects, return on equity and price-to-earnings ratio. I employ conservative strategies to increase capital while also keeping a watchful eye on macro-economic events to mitigate downside risk.

Why Walmart Is Not Evil For Opening On Thanksgiving, Give It A Break

Who died and made you the authority on business principles? This was my response in a recent discussion with a family member in discussing the state of retail giant Walmart. It seems although I have no personal interest in the company, I continue to come to its defense. As far as I’m concerned, the company has become too easy of a target.

What bothers me is the idea that a scarlet letter has to be immediately attached to anyone with enough audacity to publicly say anything positive about the company. It’s beginning to get old. When Walmart is not being attacked for claims over low wages, it is being punished for what is perceived as undermining U.S. manufacturing – It all depends on what day it is. Walmart does not kill off “mom and pop” shops – they kill themselves. Anyone with enough business sense should understand this. However, why let a good opportunity for some “righteous anger” slip away.

It’s Thanksgiving – Thanks for Shopping

However, aside from the fact that these arguments often get stale, over and over again, they are grossly based on hypocrisy. The same people that toss insults at Walmart can’t stay out of its stores for the convenience it brings. Still, this time around the company is being loathed and finds itself on the receiving end of increased backlash for its decision to open its doors on Thanksgiving. At the risk of sounding insensitive – so what! I don’t see what the big deal is.

However, over 30,000 people do as they have all signed an online petition asking the company to reverse its decision and close on Thanksgiving. However, Walmart’s plan is to open after 8PM – long after every one has eaten and certainly after second and third portions have had enough time to be digested. Still this is nothing new as the company also opened on Thanksgiving of last year – except this time it wants to open two hours earlier. Again, I ask where is the crime?

The petition asserts that Walmart is disregarding the needs of its employees and that the company can afford to allow them the time to be spend with their families. But does this make Walmart evil for providing employment in an economy already ravaged by lost jobs? What’s more, Walmart is not the only retailer that plans to open on thanksgiving in preparation for Black Friday. Other retailers such as Target, Kmart as well as Toys R Us also plan to take advantage of early shoppers. Yet it is Walmart that is considered evil for this decision.

Bottom Line

As you’re walking into a Walmart try to remember how difficult things were at the height of our country’s recent recession. With Walmart’s low prices, it’s hard to imagine if there was any other company that was more instrumental in helping Americans manage their household budgets. Still, the self-appointed moral figures on American business forget that offering low prices come at a cost. If it requires generating enough revenue on Thanksgiving so that “little Johnny” can enjoy Tickle-Me-Elmo for $10 less, I ask again – where’s the crime?

What’s more, there is a lot of good that Walmart does for which it gets very little credit – including being one of the country’s largest tax payers while offering jobs and providing American workers with opportunities that they otherwise might not have had. So is opening on Thanksgiving really that egregious after all? I think it is safe to say that there are bigger travesties in the world of business. So can we for now shelve the constant hypocrisy on this issue – at least until Christmas?

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Well you should be a little bit more specific. Should we go back to the American Revolution, when the men and women of our nation took up arms against serfdom?

Could we move it down the road to the Civil War, where brother killed brother with the butt of a rifle so that slaves could join the rest of the human race? Would you accept the name Abraham Lincoln?

How about we move it down the line to the Industrial Revolution? Do you think Mary Harris Jones left enough of a gap that your audience could claim to be stepping up on her behalf?

Martain Luther King, who said, “Our needs are identical to labor’s needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures [...] That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.”? Will that do?

How about the nameless workers at Foxconn who killed themselves in an effort to call attention to the concentration camp they endured so instant gratification Americans can have their cheap shit? We don’t know their names.

That’s just off the top of my head. A lot of people died. Mountains of bodies and rivers of blood have been spilt to protect the dignity of Americans against the horrors of exploitation. You can wave your hand and write it off, but I’m not being dramatic. I’m squaring my glare right into your watery peepers. A lot of people died to make me the authority on business principles.

Yes you are being dramatic – extremely so. Linking all the atroscities of the world to people working for low wages on Thanksgiving Day is just that.

Did the Revolutionary War have nothing to do with a distant colonial nation developing an identity and allegiance separate from the parent nations?

Did the Civil War not have to do with balance of political power and economic tensions as much as slavery? And what about divided identities again? Slavery was an evil institution, especially in separating families and friends when sold as property (women were also property and had essentially the same rights as slaves with the exception of being sold), and an element of the fight to be sure but did the entire North think that was an issue they wanted to go to war over? Did the factories of the north not have working conditions that in many cases dwarfed most slavery conditions in oppressiveness and cruelty? Did former slave owners in the South who had freed thier slaves think fighting a war with the North suited their interests? According to my college history book, 95% of the slaves in the south were owned by 5% of the population. What were the 95% who were not major slave holders fighting for other than the fact that their way of life was under attack?

Martin Luther King was correct in his statement that you quoted but without places to work and those willing to pay for the products of work, how do you accomplish that vision? There is a lot I can fault Walmart for but not for all the evils of the world. Goodness knows we all have our own long lists of shortcomings and failures. Knowing what they are and facing them truthfully is the beginning of overcoming them. I think I’ll start in my own life first where I actually have some ability to do the right thing. We are not disconnected and time eventually makes that clear to us but it’s a lesson we must repeatedly relearn.

Union workers are beginning to get hot under the collar across America. They are trying to spike anti-company outrage. If you looked a little deeper, you’d see that it was wal-mart employees unions who started all of this.

There is soon to be a civil war of sorts in America. Generally around taxpayers vs. unions. We are finding that across the nation it is unions who are killing viability. & unions are beginning to fight back with propaganda.

It should be fun. Let’s watch…

(& just for the record, I feel that we need an emancipation proclamation declaring that all taxpayers held as slaves paying for unionization are, & henceforward shall be free.)

Walmart employee here chiming in. I don’t normally post comments, but I had to this time. Been an with the company for less than six months and have already moved from part time in sales to a full forty hours in the back room each week. I am not an exception. Walmart does a wonderfull job of identifying quality and rewarding it. Will be working my regular shift on Thanksgiving, getting merchandise out the front door, and counting each sale as a little bit more on my bonus check. If you don’t approve of Walmart’s holiday actions, vote with your wallet and stay home, but please don’t make a nuisance of yourself and bother the rest of us busy with commerce. LONG LIVE CAPITALISM! (DIsclaimer, I also own Walmart stock, bought at a 15% discount through employee purchase program, which is available to ALL associates, even part time, so I am one of the “rich fat cats” who are “exploiting the masses.”)

Very well written article. I completely agree with you. Unless a person has family responsibilities or working to get themselves through university/college and ultimately a better future, i do not feel sorry for them. You chose to work there, you are going to play by the rules. Enough said.

Yeah! It baffles me how we attack our most successful corporations simply because they are successful. Much of the profitability of Walmart comes from visionary use of technology, efficiency in distribution, and advanced analytic data-mining. Good business, IMO. Low cost, wide selection, decent quality, convenient locations… Walmart does not deserve to be labeled the villain for providing what their customers want.